Top 10 Homework Tips for College Students

Doing homework is an essential part of college life, along with lectures, seminars, and sleepless nights. The sooner you learn to do homework quickly and efficiently, the more fulfilling your college years will be. Instead of struggling you will thrive. All you need to do is implement our tried-and-true tips. We’ve collected the top 10 tricks that actually work and divided them into three categories.

Set up Your Study System

Master Time-Management

There are multiple time-management practices, like GTD or Pomodoro. To get your homework done on time, you will need a calendar and a task management app. Use Google or Apple web apps, Todoist, Wunderlist or any other tools you enjoy. Next, get into a routine:

Add all your course engagements to the calendar for the whole semester.

Create a new homework task as soon as you receive the assignment.

Set the deadline for every big assignment.

Set an everyday homework goal you wish to achieve.

Conduct a weekly review of your calendar and the to-do list to make necessary changes.

Break up Big Tasks

This one is the most overlooked among homework tips. Students tend to procrastinate and complete term papers in one night instead of breaking it up into manageable chunks to complete during the semester. To break this vicious circle, use your first weekly review to divide every long assignment into smaller tasks, estimate the time they require to complete and set interim deadlines. For example, if you need to write a research paper, your to-do list should look similar to this one:

Do a Little Every Day

If the previous step seemed complicated, this one would make you wince. It’s time to put your best-laid plans to action. Set away a few hours every day to complete your to-do list. You don’t have to pull all-nighters. Instead, do a little regularly. This will make your writing and studies more efficient and less stressful. You will notice an increase in your grades and a decrease in your sugar and coffee cravings. And our next section will help you start working on your homework and stay focused to implement the first three tips.

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Establish Several Study Spaces

Your primary learning sanctuary should be in your room with a comfortable desk and chair combo, easy access to your favorite tea or coffee blend, your books, and laptop. Don’t limit yourself to this single space. Sometimes you get so fed up with well-known surroundings you can’t concentrate anymore unless you get out. Creative assignments win the most from changing the scene, since new sights, smells, and sounds kick your brain into high gear, making it easier to generate ideas. Make a list of your favorite study places and think which assignments are best-suited for each venue. For example, you might need the library silence and book-lined walls to concentrate on research papers, but you write the most creative essays in coffee shops.

It’s also a great idea to sneak in quick study sessions whenever you are idling. A bus or a subway ride to campus will provide 20 to 40 minute of reading time. The same goes to breaks between classes, waiting in lines, etc. These sneaky sessions add up, and by the end of the week, you’ll have fulfilled 5 to 10 hours of your homework schedule.

Disconnect

If you wonder how to do homework quickly, turning off the smartphone and laptop notifications is the first and crucial step. According to researchers from Carnegie Mellon University, our brains need 25 minutes to recover the focused state after the interruption. Moreover, distractions reduce our cognitive functions by 20%. When settling for a study session, prevent disturbances, or your tasks will take much longer.

Use white noise or ambient music to increase concentration further. Try [email protected] if you haven’t already. It’s an excellent tool for students, office workers, and entrepreneurs that possesses an almost magical way of getting you into a work-ready mindset. Use noise-canceling headphones if you can’t find a quiet place to study and don’t like working with a soundtrack.

Use Powerful Tools

You don’t have to hire an editor to polish your essays, modern online apps take care of this stage of writing for you. Grammarly, Hemingway, ProWritingAid are among the best. All come with free features and premium accounts for in-depth proofreading and editing. Either of these apps will make your writing flow smoothly and eliminate awkward phrasing, uncontrolled usage of passive voice, adverbs, and redundancies. If you get a premium account, you can share it with your friends or classmates to save money and make the most of the services.

There are plenty of other tools every college student needs. For instance, CiteThisForMe creates perfectly formatted references in hundreds of styles for all types of sources. Goodbudget helps students master personal financial planning while Feedly aggregates content across the chosen websites. Offtime mobile app is what you need to implement our advice to unplug.

Embrace Power in Numbers

No student is an island. Instead of struggling alone in your dorm room, go out in the world and join a study group. There is safety in numbers. Study buddies are helpful if you embrace active study methods, like explaining the material to each other or making your own quizzes. Besides, study groups develop soft skills, including teamwork, which you can proudly add to your resume. Even if you don’t help each other, you can at least commiserate about the unreasonable professors and their sky-high expectations.

Advances in long-range communication allow you to create a study group without leaving your room. Just set up a Facebook community or Google Classroom to share study materials. Use Hangouts or Skype to host video conferences with multiple participants. Whether you meet face-to-face or communicate via the Internet, all study group members will gain much from experience.

Reward Yourself

It’s one of the most pleasurable tips for college students. However, only measurable results deserve praise. Without a clear goal in mind, you can’t know when you do well. If you set a goal to write 500 words of the essay today and have written 750 instead, you deserve a reward. But if you set a goal to “write something” and added two sentences to your draft, it is hardly a feat deserving of praise.

Tailor your prizes to your tastes and preferences. You can grab a muffin to celebrate a successful day of studying or spend an extra 15 minutes on Facebook. Even a quick status update to let your friends know about your success will make you feel better. The trick to this method is to reward yourself at random intervals. If you get a muffin even time, the pastries will get old quickly, and you’ll soon need a new wardrobe. Randomizing your rewards will make them more effective.

Survive the Backlash

Learn from Mistakes

Bad grades happen. Even a D does not mean you are stupid or hopeless. It merely suggests that you’ve chosen the wrong study strategy. Or maybe you just need to work on test-taking skills. Either way, treat bad grades as a chance to learn and become a better student. After all, success is impossible without failure.

To mitigate the adverse effects of the low grade, talk to your professor and seek options to get credit for extracurricular work. Discuss ways for you to improve your overall course grade. Don’t be afraid to communicate with your teachers. Most are happy to help an eager learner to correct their mistakes. Take responsibility for your grade and show your drive to learn by getting to class on time and submitting papers before deadlines.

Recharge

It’s easy to get caught up in the homework, especially if you’ve procrastinated a little too much. So you keep studying, pulling one all-nighter after another, survive on caffeine and energy drinks. Every college student finds out the hard way this strategy only works short-term. Non-stop work tires your brain and makes your efforts progressively inefficient. Instead of driving yourself into the ground after the failed test, take a short break. Tell yourself: “I will do my homework quicker after I rest”, and allow yourself to enjoy a brief respite without worrying about deadlines, research, and references.

Binge-watching Game of Thrones does not count as proper rest. Instead of staying glued to your laptop, unplug and go out. Have a drink or two with friends, catch the latest blockbuster or chick flick, go for a jog, or read a paper book. Getting a massage or going for mani-pedi are also great options for a recharging day before you dive back into homework.

Sometimes the best study methods and techniques fail, leaving you to struggle with complicated assignments and inescapable low grades. You need not wait until you are desperate to consider seeking help at writing sites. There is no shame in asking for help when you are out of your depth. Homeworkfor.me is here for you when the deadlines are looming and essays fail to write themselves. Get in touch and solve your homework troubles now!

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